Category: Doctor Who
Doctor Who episode 390: The Sontaran Experiment – Part One (22/2/1975)
This one feels like a late 1970 British horror movie (I’m thinking something like Killer’s Moon), with a tiny cast lost in vast, remote countryside, and with zero budget. The eerie emptiness of Dartmoor works in its favour, although it’s a shame this isn’t on film as there are a couple of moments when director Rodney Bennett focuses on little details, like water dripping down the rocks, that emphasise the loneliness of the location in the same way Lawrence Gordon Clark often did in his filmed M.R. James adaptations. Nevertheless, I think the sweeping shots of the moors and vast skies are the most interesting thing about this, particularly as it makes an interesting contrast with the previous studio-bound episodes.
Doctor Who episode 389: The Ark in Space – Part Four (15/2/1975)
The final episode switches, for a chunk of its length, into a base under siege, with the Doctor and Sarah Jane defending the last humans against the Wirrn swarm. It’s practically the first opportunity we’ve had to see the two of them together. The partnership works well, with slightly less of the sarcasm Sarah demonstrates towards the third Doctor, and not much of Pertwee’s charm. Instead, the Doctor winds Sarah up to rile her into completing her mission, laughs at her indignation, and then half-reassures her they’re safe (although he seems a bit less confident on that point than I suspect Pertwee would have played it).
Doctor Who episode 388: The Ark in Space – Part Three (8/2/1975)
The Quatermass inspirations remain pretty clear in this episode. Apart from Noah’s Carroon-like transformation, and the squirming Wirrn in the solar stacks that recall the aliens in the vats in Quatermass II, we get the Doctor’s version of Quatermass and the Pit’s optic-encephalogram, a device that allows him to relive the history of the Wirrn Queen’s infiltration of the Ark. It’s a good sequence, but the really disturbing thing about it is the Doctor’s reaction: mentally linked to the Wirrn, he seems subsumed by its intelligence, to a point where he walks towards a menacing grub, as if seeking to join with it, and has to be physically restrained by Sarah Jane. All this cosmic horror is entirely Nigel Kneale (or at least Hammer’s full-bodied adaptations), much more so, in fact, than most of Season Seven.
Doctor Who episode 387: The Ark in Space – Part Two (1/2/1975)
A lot of this feels like it was written for Pertwee, particularly the Doctor’s first encounter with the revived Commander Noah which includes the very third Doctor line, ‘My dear man, if you think for one moment we’re laying claim to Earth, you couldn’t be more mistaken.’ Obviously after half a decade it’s hard for even a writer as witty as Robert Holmes to immediately divorce the character from the actor, or to predict the cadence of Tom Baker’s speech. Equally, at this early stage Baker isn’t redlining chunks of the script or proprietorially declaring he knows the Doctor better than anyone (or being indulged in that). This is one of the interesting things about Baker’s first and final seasons, both coinciding with a new production team under the guidance of Barry Letts, they feel more transitionary than any others in the classic run.
Doctor Who episode 386: The Ark in Space – Part One (25/1/1975)
Along with The Time Warrior, this is the first Doctor Who story I ever owned on video. I’ve seen it more than any other Tom Baker serial. I’m still surprised by the cliffhangers (my VHS copy having been edited into a TV movie) It feels as comfortable to me as The Five Doctors, which seems bizarre given how uncomfortably strange this is in context.
Doctor Who episode 385: Robot – Part Four (18/1/1975)
Objectively, the toy tank is far from the worst effect we’ve seen over the last few serials, but the problem is it hits you right at the top of the episode before you’re ready for it, and as it’s gently pushed into view by Clifford Culley’s hand it’s hard not to smirk. Which is a shame, because again Terrance Dicks has gone to great lengths to make sure this should be affordable and achievable (the much-vaunted Giant Robot is in it for less than five minutes of this episode), and Barry Letts has arranged for it to be all made on videotape to avoid a repeat of the floaty dinosaurs.
Doctor Who episode 384: Robot – Part Three (11/1/1975)
I love Terrance Dicks. He’s one of my favourite writers. It’s a cliché, but I genuinely feel that his accessible, compulsive prose made me fall in love with reading, and played a big part in developing my literacy as a child. And I don’t think anyone involved in the classic series knew it as well as he did. He took the wild ideas of Bob Baker and Dave Martin and helped shape them into something that could be achieved on a BBC budget. He recognised Robert Holmes’ talent and brought him onto the show. His light but firm grip on characterisation is the backbone of the Pertwee years, the first time since the early 1960s that it felt like anyone was paying much attention to it from story to story. He knew his stuff, too, when it came to continuity: he didn’t need an Ian Levine to remind him. To a greater or lesser extent he invented the Time Lords, the third Doctor, the Master, Jo Grant, Mike Yates and Sarah Jane Smith, and, between The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors fixed generations of fans’ perception of the first and second Doctors as well. His legacy for Doctor Who fans is immeasurable.
Doctor Who episode 383: Robot – Part Two (4/1/1975)
This belongs in that fairly limited selection of Doctor Who serials that aren’t historicals, but don’t feature aliens or prehistoric monsters. Previously we’ve had The War Machines and The Green Death; in future Arachnids in the UK. That’s about it. This doesn’t even have an evil computer – the robot is fairly sympathetic even in its first proper appearance threatening Sarah Jane (despite attempts to make it seem scary, like its whirr sounding like a roar). Instead, we’re provided with more backstory about Miss Winters, Jellicoe and their fringe associates in the Scientific Reform Society (have they met the European Research Group?) seeking to take over the world.
Doctor Who episode 382: Robot – Part One (28/12/1974)
The edge of a new face in the opening credits for the first time in five years is slightly offset by the fact that the time tunnel/diamond logo sequence is otherwise just a refinement of the Pertwee titles. It sets the scene for an episode that balances the shock of the new with plenty of efforts to reassure viewers that this is still the same show. In that respect it’s a contrast to Spearhead from Space, which went out of its way to look and feel different (and for obvious reasons couldn’t even include a recap of the second Doctor’s regeneration, whereas this opens with a reprise of the final moment of Planet of the Spiders).
Doctor Who episode 381: Planet of the Spiders – Part Six (8/6/1974)
On one level this is a mess. Issues with running times in previous episodes means that the recap of Part Five goes on for ages. A lot of scenes look like they were running out of time – why else would Barry Letts have approved the unconvincing fight sequence with Yates and Tommy, or John Dearth’s careful “fall” to the floor as he dies? Although to be fair, it’s about as much effort as the script’s treatment of Lupton deserves: one of the most interesting villains has been reduced to a bystander for the second half of the story. Even things that you’d expect Letts to absolutely get right are fumbled: why is K’anpo’s regeneration done better than the Doctor’s?
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